Iowa Interlude: Fringes of Des Moines and the Amanas

Harrison Hurricane: Most of our month around Des Moines was spent living with a family consisting of mom, dad, 10-year-old triplets, and 14- and 8-year-old sons. That is, for one month, we lived in our motor home in front of the home of Bob’s granddaughter and her lively family. Needless to say, this was quite an experience and our primary highlight.

Our day trip to Amanas Colonies proved to be another highlight of our stay. There’s lots of history here. The Community of True Inspiration, who founded the Amanas, was a successful, fully communal society for 89 years until they changed to capitalism in 1932 in the midst of the Great Depression. They’ve managed to adapt and change with the times very well. The seven Amana villages all have numerous tourist attractions. More than 50 shops excel in high-quality production of hand-crafted furniture, clocks, brooms, baskets, copper sculptures, ironwork, candles, quilts, and handmade dolls. Amana Woolen Mill makes blankets, clothing, dolls, and stuffed animals. Traditional family-style German meals are served at six restaurants. There are six wineries producing unique wines such as elderberry and dandelion. Iowa’s oldest microbrewery, Millstream Brewing Company, serves its own Old Time Root Beer and Cream Soda, in addition to its German-style beers. There are two bakeries and two meat shops and smoke houses. The Chocolate Haus makes candies, chocolates, and fudge. There are seven museums in historical buildings, including a church, communal kitchen, copper shop, store, barn, and machine shop. You’ll find recreational nature and bike trails, including Kolonieweg Trail circumventing Lily Lake, covered with large yellow lily blooms in late summer. There are two motels, and eight bed-and-breakfasts, many in a budget price range (-70 per night). Centrally located Amana RV Park costs -20 per night. Stay six nights and get the seventh night free.

Sesquicentennial events will be taking place in the Amanas during 2005, celebrating 150 years since founding.

Back in the Des Moines area, The Machine Shed surely is the taste of Iowa, with very reasonably priced and mouthwatering breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, offering a wonderful selection of homestyle meals and delectable desserts. This is the kind of restaurant you just want to keep coming back to because the food is just so good. If only they could figure out a way to cut the calories…

Quick Tips:

Amana store hours: Most shops are open 9am to 5pm daily; some are closed Sundays. Get an early start if you only allocate one day. You could easily spend 3 days here.

Amanas festivals and special events: Coordinate your visit to the Amanas with one of the many special events that take place from April to December. Some are to be expected, such as festivals of basketry, wood crafting, and Oktoberfest. Others are surprising, such as Cajun Fest the end of May, featuring a crawfish feed and Cajun music.

Hello, humidity: It took me getting a rash in certain parts of my body where skin meets skin--without going into too much detail here, we are talking above the waist--for me to experiment with powders and ointments, at first to cure the rash and then to prevent reoccurance. What worked best was simple cornstarch baby powder applied liberally after showering.

Goodbye, wide open spaces: I’m used to the far vistas and wide-open spaces of the West. The Midwest is more level, more filled in with roads, homes, communities, trees, bushes, vast green lawns, and of course, corn and soybean fields, and it has an entirely different feel.

Best Way To Get Around:

Getting to Des Moines: Des Moines International Airport lies immediately south of Des Moines. Twelve airline carriers provide service to and from Des Moines International (DSM), with non-stop flights to 15 airports. Eight major car rental agencies are based at the airport.

Getting around in Des Moines and vicinity: MTA (Des Moines Metropolitan Transit Authority) system provides rides throughout greater Des Moines for per adult, 50 cents for senior citizens and disabled. There's a additional charge for express and commuter routes and dial-a-ride. The downtown shuttles cost 10-25 cents. Weekly and monthly passes can be purchased for unlimited rides and transfers. We used our car. But watch out, as road maintenance is not too good here. In dusk, Bob, who’s usually very good at avoiding potholes, hit a deep hole he guessed to be about a foot round. He never did see it, but our Hyundai front windshield cracked from the force of that sudden jolt.

Best Things Nearby:
The best things nearby were Iowa’s capital city, Des Moines; Machine Shed restaurant; and Living History Farms.

Best Things About the Resort:
They have roomy, grassy, and well-shaded sites; free paddleboats; a nice workout room; and lots of amenities and activities.

Resort Experience:
We arrived after dark with Coast to Coast reservations and had no trouble registering, obtaining a gate card, and finding our assigned full-hookup campsite. It was only the next morning with daylight, after we woke up and got around, that we realized what a great resort we’d landed in, virtually in Des Moines’ backyard.

Large and spacious with a lake as centerpiece, Cutty’s Des Moines has even more amenities than its sister campground in Okoboji. The two-story lakeside clubhouse has a big dining area and kitchen upstairs, which is gleaming and modern. Downstairs there is a indoor pool; spa; sauna; bathrooms and showers with lockers; laundry room; and much to my delight, a gym with treadmills, stationary bicycles, and an assortment of mechanized physical therapy massage tables, all with instructions for use. I’m too accustomed finding campground gyms with hand-me-down machines that barely work, ones on their last legs; these machines were like new, well-oiled and maintained. The bike was better than any I’ve used yet.

Back at our campsite, we looked around for a fire pit or cooking grill. We’d planned a Labor Day weekend get-together with relatives and had 10 pounds of chicken that would never fit on our own little grill or pans at one time. Incredulously, all up and down our row, there was not a fire pit to be found. Turns out that at this Cutty’s some more closely spaced rows with sewers don’t have fire pits, so we quickly made our move to a sewer-less space a few rows down with the all-essential grill. We were ready for company!

As expected, the campground/resort filled up for this last camping hurrah of the season before school and onset of cooler weather. Bob’s relatives arrived and the party began. I’d prepared two different kinds of potato salads and slow-cooked cowboy beans to go with the chicken. But prior to that, we enjoyed sitting around the chicken as the hot wood coals transformed it from pink to golden, chatting and sipping on rum and cokes and munching on chips and dips and tortilla rollups.

The next morning dawned bright and sunny as one after another of our guests emerged from their big yellow tent. It was time for pancakes and French toast, the easy way. Cutty’s offers an all-you-can-eat buffet of these, plus juice and coffee, for $2 per head. For an extra buck, you can get a big slice of ham. It was then off to the clubhouse, where the cooks were creatively making Mickey Mouse pancakes alongside plain ones, plus stacks of French toast. After everyone had their fill, we wandered over to the Carnival for slush cone desserts for the kids and to check out the games and prizes. They ended up playing more on the various and sundry pieces of playground equipment, slides, swings, climbing toys, and an Old West playhouse. While the "grown-ups" returned to the campsite to kick back, the kids went swimming, played miniature golf, paddle-boated, and threw each other (or fell accidentally/on purpose) in the lake.

• Campground Type: Private
• Campsite Type: RV
• Price Range: $0 - $10
• Cleanliness: Excellent
• Campground Facilities: Excellent
• Recreational Facilities: Excellent
• Campsite Satisfaction: Very Good
• Family Friendliness: Excellent
• Service: Very Good

"You really ought to try the Machine Shed," Mike told us. We were enjoying a delicious barbecue at Bob’s nephews and family in Clive, a suburb of Des Moines. "They’ve got this thing called burnt ends that’s slow-cooked smoked pork and beef… they’re unbelievably tender. And they have a ten-layer chocolate cake dessert that’s just oozing with chocolate and HUGE." "Well, we’re probably not going to be back out this way…" responded Bob. But the very next evening, there we were at the Machine Shed, meeting some of Bob’s school friends from the past. Even though there are six other Machine Shed locations in Illinois, Kansas, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, the Machine Shed is VERY Iowa. We spent a delightful evening with Mona and Jerry, and everyone agreed that their dinners were scrumptious beyond words.

Iowa Machine Shed is part of a larger complex including Living History Farms. Later, when we found out more about that, we were sorry we didn’t take the time to include this extensive attraction. The big barn-like restaurant is surrounded by farm tools and implements on display. Above the Machine Shed entrance, a sign announces "Farming is Everyone’s Bread and Butter." Beneath, festive fall pumpkins, dried cornstalks, and mums surround a big plaster black-and-white Iowa porker and a taller-than-a-man wood-carved cob of corn. Inside we found numerous farm-style decorated dining rooms, saloon, and a large gift shop.

Mona and I ordered the special: roasted Iowa chops stuffed with apple-pecan dressing and glazed with apple-whiskey sauce. Accompanying it, green beans cooked just right and mashed sweet potatoes, a tasty alternative to plain mashed spuds. On the side we had fresh-baked bread, a bountiful bowl of delicious coleslaw, and baked beans. Jerry ordered plowman’s meatloaf with grilled French bread under grilled onions, mashed potatoes, and gravy, all topped with crispy onion strings. Bob got the 13-ounce haybaler top sirloin, grain-fed and cut fresh daily in Machine Shed’s butcher shop.

Some words of caution: these meals are HUGE, of the size eaten when you’ve been burning calories out on the farm from sunup to sundown. They do make wonderful leftovers to take home. Most Machine Shed offerings are supremely delicious, but heavy-duty, artery-clogging foods. Finally, be alert for extra charges: Bob agreed to have his sirloin topped with sautéed button mushrooms and onions and parmesan butter crust, thinking it came with dinner. Wrong - $4 was added. Yet, overall, meal prices are excellent for the quality, quantity, and variety of choice. "Light chore" dinners (the meatloaf was one) are all under $10, and all but the more expensive dinners ($22 for a 20-ounce Porterhouse) were under $15. Full lunches average $7, breakfasts $6. Our pitcher of beer was a steal at $4.

Though the Machine Shed isn’t for calorie counters, there are a few vegetarian meals in the sandwiches and soups. But for the carnivores among us, this place simply can’t be beat. Visit the Machine Shed for a BIG yummy taste of Iowa; come famished.

"Where will we go to eat?" was a tough question, for there were many enticing choices. Bob had been talking about Amanas food for years already, telling me you can pick what you want and then they just keep bringing out more food. Jeff recalled once eating lots of good food at the Ox Yoke Inn. We eventually settled on the Colony Inn Restaurant in Main Amana. Jeff could try a new place, homemade desserts were included with dinner, and they claimed to be where family-style dining began in 1935.

We arrived mid-afternoon on this September weekday. Entering the restaurant through a gift shop, we found bright, roomy dining areas with plenty of room between tables and only a few other diners. Each table was covered with blue-and-white checkered oilcloth and surrounded by sensible wooden chairs in various styles. We perused the menu with anticipation. How family-style works is, you pick one meat specialty and all kinds of side dishes come with it. We each selected a different specialty: sauerbraten (marinated roast beef), Kassler Rippchen (hickory-smoked pork), chicken schnitzel, and Amana pork sausage. Almost immediately, baskets of fresh bread and bowls of cottage cheese, lettuce salad, and sweet sauerkraut salad were deposited around us. We’d already ordered a pitcher of amber bock when I spied dandelion wine on the menu. Couldn’t pass that up! So (for the first time) I sipped the sweet golden liquid as an interesting accompaniment to the salads and passed it around for all to taste.

When the bottoms of the salad bowls and bread baskets were becoming visible, our meats and side dishes arrived: mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, and… more sauerkraut, this time more sour than sweet. Of course everyone had to try each specialty. The smoked pork chops were the winner, tender and flavorful. Tied for middle place were the chicken breasts, breaded and fried golden-brown, and the seasoned grilled Amana pork sausages. My specialty, the sauerbraten, was a disappointment. I’d enjoyed sauerbraten years ago in California and recalled the slightly sour meat with a dark, sweet, zippy ginger-snap sauce that contrasted well with the meat. This sauerbraten and ginger gravy it came in was sort of blah.

Although we were pretty full by now, we HAD to have dessert, because it came with the meal! But somehow we made room for pie, ice cream, and apple strudel.

The historic Colony Inn building was constructed in 1860 as the Amana Hotel. Its gardens and kitchens served overland travelers. When the railroad reached the Amanas in 1883, the hotel had to expand to accommodate increased business from rail travelers. In 1932, the Amanas gave up the communal lifestyle for capitalism. By 1935, the Colony Inn was serving family style meals for $0.50 a head, not a bad deal even for those Depression times. Today, traditional Amanas recipes are still used and all dishes are prepared fresh daily. It’s still not a bad deal at $13 to 15 per person.

We took a day trip to the Amanas with Bob’s granddaughter and her husband on a bright and sunny September day. Just over an hour’s drive on I-80 east of Des Moines, we turned off at Highway 151, exit 225, 5 miles south of the Amanas Loop. "Willkommen to the Amana Colonies" were the friendly words on a billboard at the intersection of 151 and the Amanas Trail. As did my brochure, the yellow route painted on the billboard map showed that we could turn either left or right to begin our loop. Since we wanted to end our day in Main Amana with a family-style meal at one of several restaurants there, we decided to begin from the opposite end. This route would bring us through five of the seven Amanas colonies.

The high quality of craftsmanship for which Amanas products are renowned was evident at both Schanz Furniture and Refinishing Shop, Krauss Furniture, and Clock Shop, next door to one another in South Amana. As we wandered through, admiring wooden handcrafted furniture for every room in the house; grandfather clocks; wall-hangings; and inventive, intricate toys, we realized we’d have to pick up our pace a bit when we still weren’t done after an hour. Krauss’s offers a self-guided tour of their workshop and finishing area. No assembly line here; every piece of furniture and clock is made by a skilled craftsperson from locally grown walnut, cherry, and oak. These are solid, elegantly styled, timeless pieces that are meant to be used daily and will last generations. Both stores sell online and ship anywhere.

Our first glimpses of Amanas humor were at Krauss’s: 10 small wooden contraptions on the sales counter. Example: A quarter pounder? A tiny gavel screwed to a clothespin, the head suspended above an indentation in a strip of wood containing a quarter. Squeeze the clothespin and the gavel pounds the quarter. OK, it’s a visual thing – cuter seen than described! In West Amana, we were to find a veritable treasure trove of belly laughs when we pulled over at the Broom and Basket Shop advertising "Home of Iowa’s Largest Walnut Rocker." It was big all right. Suddenly the four of us were acting like 5-year-olds, taking turns clambering up in the chair and taking pictures of each other. Look at those two tiny men, Jeff and Bob, on the right. Outdoors, a motley assortment of old farm equipment lay on display, with some ancient tractors partly imbedded in the dirt, with cryptic signs such as "You have to have a MM to keep the IH out of the mud." Bob’s granddaughter, Lee, found a buddy in the perpetual motion saw-guy, an old codger in a blue bandanna smoking a corncob pipe (see photo below). Up and down he went, not making much progress on the big old log in front of him.

Broomcorn and basket willows: Benjamin Franklin is credited with planting the first broomcorn seeds in the U.S. obtained in Hungary, originally from a sorghum-like African plant. Broomcorn is grown near the shop, but most of the U.S. broomcorn grows on in the Texas Panhandle, producing up to 25,000 tons yearly, enough for the more than 50 million broomcorn brooms sold every year in this country. The Broom and Basket Shop sells all kinds of brooms, including some special ones, such as the West Amana sideliner whisk broom, the old Amana Colony pot broom, and even witches’ brooms in several sizes and styles! Also of interest, the first Inspirationist immigrants brought a cultured variety of willow with them to America to make their baskets. The villages all had teams of basket-weavers to supply their basketry needs. Besides willow baskets, the shop also sells traditional splint oak and coiled straw baskets. Both of these old crafts are alive and well in the Amanas.

Get ready for winter at the Amana Woolen Mill, the only working woolen mill in Iowa. We visited the main salesroom in Amana, with an extensive collection of woolen items and so much more. Arrive before 4pm, as their looms run on the half hour until then. The work area is signed with simple explanations of such machinery as warping creels, reels, and computerized Sulzer looms, which can make a 6-foot blanket in 3 to 4 minutes!

You can watch a brief video about the history of the mill. Besides woolen blankets, clothing, and stuffed animals, there’s a large assortment of other attractive Amanas products, such as quilted cotton kitchen items, wall hangings, and calendars. Lee exclaimed, "I can hardly wait for it to get cold!" as she emerged from the shop with woolen blanket-robe, hat, and mittens for the upcoming harsh Iowa winter. If you don’t take Amanas loop, there’s another wool store outlet in Little Amana right on the I-80 at exit 225.

Amana and Maytag are well-known appliances synonymous with quality. I fondly remember the old Amana freezer handed down from my parents to me, finally sold when we began full-timing in our motor home. We drove by the Amana Refrigeration Products factory in Middle Amana. We didn’t stop, but heard you can visit a showroom exhibiting the history of appliances. Visit their website to view their line of products.

As usual, not enough time… Some shops we would have liked to visit but didn’t included Fern Hill Gifts and Quilts in South Amana; High Amana General Store in High Amana; and Schnitzelbank, Chocolate Haus, and Christmas Room in Main Amana. We’d also liked to have checked out one or more of the six wineries for some wine-tasting and Millstream Brewing Company, Iowa’s oldest microbrewery.

Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse, with me from Lebanon: look from the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and Hermon, from the lions' dens, from the mountains of the leopards. -- Song of Solomon 4:8, King James Version

From this verse in the lovely lyrical and sensual Song of Songs, the German Inspirationist immigrants named their new settlement in Iowa. The year was 1855. Founding Inspirationist werkzeug Christian Metz was commanded in a vision to name the village bleib treu (stay true, remain faithful). Amana, a mountain in the Anti-Lebanon range between Syria and Lebanon, and also a river or stream near Damascus, is defined in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia as meaning "firm" or "constant." So began the first village of the seven Amana Colonies of Iowa in the broad, fertile valley overlooking the Iowa River.

The Community of True Inspiration began much earlier, however, with two individuals at the dawn of the 1700s in Germany. Eberhard Gruber and Johann Rock, both Lutherans, began to diverge from the tenets of the state Lutheran church, advocating humility and piety through simple worship. Both believed that God still spoke through certain chosen individuals, inspired ones, tools of God, or werkzeuges (instruments). They felt the Lutheran Church had become too formalized and removed from the common people. They wrote about their beliefs and traveled through Germany and Switzerland, establishing congregations called Inspirationists.

It wasn’t long before these congregations fell afoul of the German Lutheran clergy and establishment, however. They refused to send their children to public schools and refused to join the military. By the 1840s, the combined effects of persecution, excessive rents and taxation, and crop failures due to drought led the Community of True Inspiration to seek a new home in America. In 1842, they purchased 5,000 acres of land near Buffalo, New York, on the Seneca Indian Reservation. Here they established a constitution initiating a communal system of ownership. The settlement of Ebenezer thrived, and soon grew so rapidly that they were running out of room. Nearby Buffalo was industrializing and some feared it would influence the community negatively. Besides, New York land was getting too expensive, so they decided to go west. A possible land purchase in Kansas fell through, but shortly thereafter, Amana was founded. By 1861, all seven Amana colonies had been built, and the Inspirationists farmed on the 26,000 surrounding acres.

Amana Communal Society: The seeds of communality already had sprouted back in the homeland of Germany, where wealthier Inspirationists helped support those less well-off. The institutionalization of the communal lifestyle in America stemmed more from practicality than political or ideological reasons. It also fit in with their religious beliefs to share what they had. In the Amana Colonies of the 1860s, though mothers with many young children or aged relatives to care for stayed home, women with children over the age of 2 were required to work outside of the home in the community. By that time, besides farming, there were two woolen mills, a calico cloth works, grist and flourmills, and lumber and brickyards. There were also communal gardens, orchards, and kitchens. In their heyday, there were more than 50 community kitchens in the seven villages, feeding more than 1,500 people three meals and two coffee/snack breaks a day. In Middle Amana is one of six Amana heritage sites, the only community kitchen still open, not for use as a kitchen but for its historical value. We glimpsed inside the kitchen and saw big pots and pans atop a large brick oven, suitable for feeding 30 to 40. In another corner stood a tall, old metal icebox. A large black wood-burning stove dominated the center of the room. Behind the set table hung cutting boards of various sizes, the largest one appearing to be 2 by 3 feet. I was interested to learn that most families didn’t eat in these kitchens, but sent members to pick up their allocated portions, which they’d eat in their own homes.

An early start: Children were required to begin school at age 3. They learned lessons by rote, respect for authority, and order. They were indoctrinated in Inspirationist religious beliefs and taught a vocation. Most finished their education by eighth grade, at age 14. Some who showed exceptional promise were sent on to high school and college. Mostly German was spoken in the Amanas, and the German traditions at Christmas and Easter and German nursery rhymes and games were handed down to the young ones. Church attendance was mandatory for everyone, with 11 services and prayer meetings weekly.

The Grand Council ruled the Amanas. These 13 male elders were appointed by the werkzeuges. This council had much power and influence in communal times. They made the rules and economic policies and also dealt with those who broke the rules. Every year the elders examined every Amanas member for "spiritual correctness" in a process called Unterredung (interview). Church seating was strictly regulated. The more spiritual you’d been determined to be, the closer you could sit to the front. Men and women were not allowed to sit together. Newlyweds and parents of new babies were automatically moved back a few rows to denote their assumed reduction in spirituality.

The Great Change: In 1932, after 89 years of communal living, internal and external factors combined to end the communal nature of the Amanas Colonies. The Depression had started in 1929, hurting the Amanas economy, which was not isolated from the rest of the nation’s. But unrest and dissatisfaction had been building prior to that, especially in younger members. Some elders were accused of favoritism. Old rules were challenged and church attendance fell. There had been no new werkzeuges identified since the last one, Barbara Heinemann, died in 1883. The automobile, electricity, the telephone, and movies were allowed in the Amanas, especially attracting younger members to the ways of the outside world. The vote to disband communalism was overwhelming. The decision was made to form a profit-sharing, joint-stock corporation, the Amana Society. It proved to be a good change for most, encouraging development of new businesses such as Amana Appliances, creating more opportunities for youngsters to attend high school and college and allowing the Amana Church to continue, remaining a vital part of community life. Though members now work for wages and own their homes, the Amana Society still farms the land and manages various successful businesses, such as the Amana Woolen Mill and Salesroom, Amana Furniture, Amana Meat Shop, and Amana General Store.

That’s what this family calls itself, a hurricane, though they’re a fairly normal family of seven: five kids and two parents, plus two dogs and a gecko. (There used to be a hamster, but one of the dogs mistakenly thought it was food.) My husband Bob is grandpa and great-grandpa to the Harrisons, and we had the enjoyable experience of spending almost 1 month as their neighbors in rural Berwick on the outskirts of Des Moines. Neighbors because they let us park our motor home in front of their house, which is conveniently located on a dead-end street next to a grassy meadow.

So what’s life like parked next to a Hurricane? Well, every morning around 8am there’s a bit of commotion as the kids are hurried out of the house and to the bus stop on the corner. It’s then quiet on weekdays as dad Jeff tackles the many home chores, loads of laundry on an almost daily basis, cleaning and straightening up indoors, mowing the lawn, going on errands in town, and occasionally working construction jobs. Mom Lee has already been up since the dark pre-dawn hours, quietly leaving for her job with an insurance company in Des Moines, from which she’ll return by 4pm. But before then, the high-pitched wheeze of school bus brakes accompanied by high-pitched squealing children’s voices signal that the kids are coming home from school. Then the tempo of life picks up, with triplets Sami and Lacey being hustled off to dance classes and triplet Ronny to scrimmage football most days. Singletons Nik (oldest) and Brody (youngest) also participate in sports, track, and wrestling. Occasionally one of the kids will be driven over to a friend’s house, or a friend of theirs will come over for dinner and sleepover. On weekdays there’s homework for all, and the triplets and Brody test each other on the times tables, or I help with spelling, or Mom sits with someone for reading. Dinners, preceded by grace said by one of the kids, are a hustle-bustle sociable time, but it’s a rare event for all seven Harrisons to be seated eating at once. Usually a couple of stragglers are brought home from whatever events they attended, grab a plate, and see what’s left to eat. Very soon it’s already bedtime for the kids, and parents soon follow, or follow when they can.

This little street in Berwick could be an ideal place to grow up. There’s virtually no traffic because there are no cross streets; it’s on the end of an access street past (what else?) a cornfield. But there are other school-aged kids on the street; one neighbor even has a trampoline in their side yard that seems to be open for anyone on the block to bounce on. It’s refreshing that the worry about lawsuits seems to be absent.

Tiny Berwick has one official building, the post office, plus a few churches. But it’s not far from a Hi-Vee market and Wal-Mart in nearby Altoona. Just off Berwick’s main street, NE 38th Street, you’ll find Mally’s Weh-Weh-Neh-Kee Park, a Polk County park and wildlife refuge. Paths lead through the park and to Five Mile Creek that borders it, over which an old wooden train trestle runs.

It’s a great place to take family dogs Tiffany and Libby for walks and a swim. And a good starting point for a walk along the railroad tracks, across the creek and through farmers’ fields, and gently rolling landscape. Watch out for the poison ivy. I wish I could say there was a bed-and-breakfast in Berwick, but I didn’t see any, and it’s probably just too small and off the beaten path for accommodations to be profitable. But it is the kind of little burg where you can stop and talk to friendly people who’ve lived all or most of their lives here. So if you’re in the Des Moines area and want to get a real feel of small-town Midwest, drive over to Berwick and stop at shady Weh-Weh-Neh-Kee Park, where I found the lawn-mowing guy fast asleep on the table under the picnic shelter one late morning walk. Must’ve had a good party the night before, but then again, things don’t move too fast here.